If you've ever wondered how to measure social media, public relations, public affairs, media relations, internal communications or blogs you're in the right spot. In this space I'll be regularly ranting and raving about measurement standards, research news, techniques and the latest developments in the world of PR research and evaluation. When I'm not here, you can find me in my garden in Durham New Hampshire or in my sailboat out on the Oyster River.

How to introduce me

For those who bear the burden of introducing me at a conference...

Katie Delahaye Paine (twitter: KDPaine) is the CEO and founder of KDPaine & Partners LLC and author of, Measuring Public Relationships, the data-driven communicators guide to measuring success. She also writes the first blog and the first newsletters dedicated entirely to measurement and accountability. In the last two decades, she and her firm have listened to millions of conversations, analyzed thousands of articles, and asked hundreds of question in order to help her clients better understand their relationships with their constituencies.
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September 2012

September 21, 2012

Measurement is my thing. I started my career as a TV researcher, moved on to media research then marketing research. However, I know most people don't love numbers as I do. Getting people to understand the benefits of measurement and to actually delve into numbers is no easy task -- until now. Measuring the Networked Nonprofit: Using Data to Change the World by Beth Kanter and Katie Delahaye Paine takes the snooze out of analyzing numbers.

September 19, 2012

It's been an amazing fortnight, capped by the SocialEyez/MEPRA workshop this morning. What a turnout. Over 100 people from major corporations, government agencies, PR firms and social agencies showed up to hear the lastest on social media measurement standards. What an incredibly feeling to know that our standards efforts are being taken seriously in so many parts of the world.

The dialog was the best part. We had a panel with my colleague Fadl Al Tarzi, Emily Fitzgerald (ELC Smashbox - Digital Marketing Manager) andnKhaled Akbik – Social Media Manager OMD. The questions the audienced ask were tough, insightful and challenging. I have far greater emphathy for social media managers in the Middle East than ever before. It was a great morning, here's what it looked like:

September 17, 2012

Analyst Horace Dediu of Asymco created the chart below, which shows the collapse of the Microsoft-Intel personal computing monopoly.The chart is being tweeted around. We got it from Paul Kedrosky.The chart appears to include unit sales of PCs, smartphones, and tablets. I've also added a chart from BI Intelligence below Asymco's that shows the unit sales of each of these gadgets.Horace Dediu, AsymcoAnd here's the chart from BI Intelligence showing the unit sales of PCs, smartphones, and tablets:SEE ALSO: Why So Many People Hate The iPhone 5

I just love this chart form Asymco by way of Business Insider. You can follow along the whole history of the personal computer. Of course, it makes the TRS-80 look like a really big deal. Which, back then, it was.

As most followers of this blog know, I've been spending quite a bit of time in the Middle East of late, in my role as Chief Marketing Officer for News Group International. One of the first things I realized is the wealth of information and resources we have under one roof.

So, as we were putting together the official "Election Issue" of The Measurement Standard and trying to add an international flavor to it, we decided to turn our own skills on an analysis of the US Elections from a "rest-of-the-world perspective." While we didn't have time to survey every country in the world, we asked our colleagues at Salience/Report International to pull traditional media from around the world to find out how they were covering the US Elections and what they were saying. And, because we have the best social media team in the MENA region, we put them on the case as well. The results themselves were surprising in how much variation we found between countries.

If you live in the US, you would see far more coverage of the Romney campaign than Team Obama. The exact opposite is true in the rest of the world. And, contrary to what many would like to believe, US Politics really does not dominate the thoughts of people outside our borders. They'd much rather talk about their athletes in the Olympics than the fights for editorial gold between our candidates. View the entire report here:
Download Global Pespectives US Election

September 15, 2012

A critical part of this week has been getting to know our new colleagues at Salience, SocialEyez, MediaWatch and News Group. And, of course, there's nothing like food to bring people together. Now at KDPaine & Partners we're pretty savvy about the impact that sharing a lobster can have on a relationship. In fact, the fact that we have made progress on Social Media Standards is in large part attributable to lobster.

So it is hardly surprising that our first official dinner with most of our new colleagues took place on a boat, (okay, not a boat you've ever seen the likes of in New Hampshire)
and included lots of seafood.

Here we are pledging to beat our competition (actually, the target was some wonderful local crabs)
And this is proof that even Doug does stop working occasinally
but not for long
And yes, and the Emeriati aprons make you look just as silly as the ones in New Hampshire do

After a busy day of meetings at Newsgroup, I couldn't resist stopping at the pool bar to shoot some pictures of the amazing sunset.

And there's nothing like 107 degrees outside to make a cold Stella the tastiest thing on earth.And yes, the climate is very different. It's not a "dry" heat. Its a knock-you-off-your-feet heat. The only way I can describe it is to imagine what its like to come in from a day when its below zero outside and being plunked into your wood stove. The average temperature of an average room is about 65 and the temperature outside is 107.

Back to business.

While so many measurement practices have crossed geographical boundaries, and the similarities between the folks at KDPaine & Partners and our colleagues at Salience,MediaWatch and Socialeyez outnumber the differences, There's a significant differences in the challenges they face. They take the concept of dedication to a whole new level. Sure, we have trouble geting to the office in a snow storm or a hurricane. But next time I'm whining about the weather, I'll think about the anlalyst in Libya who had to flee for his life, but still made it to an Internet cafe to send his clips back to MediaWatch in Dubai. Or the group of SocialEyez analysts who had to evacuate Cairo in the middle of the revolution, but when they got to Jordan were told they couldn't enter the country (titles with social media in them were a bit suspect at the time) , so they had to spend days in the Amman airport. Or an analyst in Afghanistan dodging IEDs on the way to work. It's also pretty amazing to think that these colleagues -- are located in 40 countries around the world.

They also have some pretty high standards for customer service. They figure it takes two years to train a client service representative. And their standard, even with 700 clients, is to answer every single client query within two hours. And, even more amazing to this email-centric girl, it is mandatory to visit each client in person at least once a year.

Wednesday morning after three days in hermetically sealed buildings I had to see what fresh air felt like, even thought it was 100 degree fresh air, so I was determined to go for a run.I headed out for a run around The Dubai Mall, largest in the world.
It took 40 minutes just to run around the outside. It's pretty much everything in this picture. But more about the Mall in another post.

But despite the heat and the lack of pedestrian-friendliness in the city, it's a great place to be working. It's like the early days of Silicon Valley, where there's an entrepreneur behind every desk, and everyone is just bubbling with ideas and innovations and new ways of doing things.

September 11, 2012

I'm in Dubai
for the next 10 days or so and thought I would do a bit of blogging about the trip. First, lets set the record straight. When I say I'm headed for Dubai I invariably get two responses. The first is: Take me with you. The second is: Travel Safe, as if I'm headed somewhere dangerous. The reality is, you really don't want to travel with me -- I'm known to wear out people half my age, and coming home there's barely enough extra room in my suitcase for a postcard. Secondly, Dubai is probably as safe as Durham, NH.

This is probably my sixth trip to Dubai, but the first one in which I have actually been an official part of News Group International, which is based in Dubai and is the reason I've become such a regular visitor to these parts.

My first meeting was with my colleagues at SocialEyez, (@social_eyez) the hot young social media measurement and engagement company stated by News Group in 2010. With a stellar client list and amazing range of services, it's taking the region by storm. This is Manal who heads up the team. She confesses to speaking Arabic with an LA accent since she grew up in Yonkers and Southern California. Whatever you do, don't try to stand in her way when she's on a mission. Like most of the crew here, she is passionate about what she does and can find a solution for just about anything. You want to measure social media in Libya in the middle of a revolution? just ask Manal. She's already done it.

This is the team I met with who on Sunday decided to organize a Google+ Hangout on Monday night with my co-author Beth Kanter and another IRL workshop on Social Media Measurement Standards with MEPRA at the Westin in Dubai on Wedensday morning -- NEXT WEEK. It can take me that long to organize my laundry!

This is what the view is like from their very bustling offices in Dubai Silcon Oasis, a business and residential development about 15 minutes from downtown.

And this where I sit with Giselle Bodie, CEO of Salience, our parent company.

September 09, 2012

Mt. Washington is like the Statue of LIberty.
Okay, I can hear the comments now.. but I grew up splitting my time between New York and New Hampshire. I did the obligatory school trip to the Lady of Liberty and haven't been back since. I'm sure that's true of most New Yorkers. Here's this amazing destination in their back yard
and no one ever goes to see it as an adult.
It's been about 50 years since I first saw the top of Mt. Washington. Then, it was an obligatory trip that you took the kids to. enerally you went up the Cog Railway,
or if you were brave you drove up the AutoRoad. We drove, but at the time, I was much more entranced by my cousins who were taking me than by the mountain itself.
Amazing what 50 years will do.
I was recently asked by SkyNews to provide a brief video introduction to New Hampshire as part of their coverage of the US Presidential Elections. Given all the possible places in New Hamsphire I could film the segment, it seemed most logical (if not the most convenient) to do it on Mt. Washington.
approached Howie Wemyss of the Mt. Washington Auto Road,
for help and he was most obliging. When asked if I wanted a van, I quickly said yes, since, if truth be told, I'm the one who has to sit on the far side of the car if we're driving up the coastal highway in California. I'm terrified of cliffs, steep drop offs etc, so was very happy to have Rick, a 26-year veteran of the mouontain on hand to take us to the optimum location
I borrowed a camera, corralled Sue Sturtevant,
one of my colleagues at KDPaine & Partners to be the official videographer, and we were good to go.
After a week of rain and fog, the weather gods were clealry trying to disprove the mountains repuation for "the worst weather on earth." It was a spectacularly clear day. Rick kept calling it 'hazy' but other than not quite being able to see the Atlantic Ocean, it looked perfect to me.
Which posed the first challenge. The light was so bright and clear that we needed to find some shade to complete our shoot. And of course there was the wind. Mt. Washington is famous for its wind gusts, and while Friday was a remarkably calm day, there was still enough of it to impact the sound for our taping.
We set out with a video camera, two cell-phone cameras and two still cameras -- determined to capture every image we could. and Sue and I spent a rather amusing hour lugging all this stuff around, trying out various nooks and crannies, to find a spot sufficiently out of the glare and the wind.
In the process I put down my glasses and of course immediately lost them in the ground cover.Just imagine trying to find a pair of thing gold framed glasses here:
Unbelievably, after about 20 minutes of retracing our steps and trying to remember where we'd been, they turned up.
Just as the battery on the camera was about to die, we found a small depression in a large rock outcropping. With me wedgegd into the lowest spot and Sue balancing on the edge we did one last take, which of course was the perfect one.
Then, since we were half way there, we took a run up to the very top.
The most amazing thing was to look down at the outcropping where we'd done the shoot:
We'll post a link to the Sky News app as soon as it's ready. But in the mean time, if you haven't been up the AutoRoad recently, I'd highly recommend it. Unlike the scary dirt road it was when I was ten, it is mostly paved these days. Even so, I'd recommend taking the van. You'll spend much more time appreciating the scenery, and the history and stories that you hear are way more fun.

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Measure What Matters

Katie Delahaye Paine's great little book Measure What Matters shows organizations of all sizes how to evaluate and improve their public relations and social media efforts. OrderMeasure What Matters now.